"So it was we lived for a time that was shorter than it seemed, building on the mud of our shaky fortunes a pride that our poverty could not overturn. Kornel had a saying that seemed irreligious but very true. 'There are ministers and farmers and lawyers who are rich,' he would observe, 'but there's no money in work,' I have since been won to believe that there is a flaw in the argument, but for us it was true, and bitterly true. We were never on the right side of ten shillings; we were never out of sight of the thin brink of want. That we were preserved and kept clear of disaster was due only to the toil of Kornel and my own anxious care for the spending of the money. I found out that a wife who is strong has a great trade to drive in upholding her house; and I, at any rate, was proficient in maintaining cleanliness, in buying and making food, and preserving to my home the atmosphere of happiness and welcome that anchors a man to his own place. Take it all in all, we were happy, and yet I would not pretend that there were not grim hours when we wondered if the mere living were worth all that it cost. Kornel, hard as iron always, grew lean and stooped, and there appeared in his face a kind of wild care that frightened me. From the chill upcoming of the dawn to the rising of the wind at evening he taxed himself remorselessly at the sorry work in the mud, while I scrubbed and scraped and plotted and prayed to make the meagre pay cover wants that were pared meagre enough. Yes, there were certainly times when we thought the cost too great, but, God be praised, we never thought it at the same moment, and the stronger always upheld the weaker.
"And there was never any shame in the matter. Even as we feared nothing, we were never ashamed. Never!
"One morning—, about an hour before high sun, when the dust lay thick on the road into the town that passed our land, and the neighborhood around was feverish with the fuss of the Kafirs and yellow folk, I stood for a moment at my door, looking down to where Kornel was fervently at work in the spruit. There was always traffic on the road at that hour, and something drew me to look towards it. At once I saw my father. He was riding in, dressed in his black clothes, very solemn and respectable, with his beard flowing over his chest. At the same moment he saw me, and seemed to start in his saddle and glance quickly at all about—at my poor little house, the litter that lay about, the squalor of the town-end we lived in, and the laborious bent back of my man as he squattered about in the mud. He checked his horse an instant, as though by an impulse; for my father, though I honored him, was a weak man, in whom no purpose was steadfast. I saw the wavering in his face and the uncertainty of his big pale eyes; and then, half- nodding to me as though in an embarrassment, he pushed on and entered the town. I went down and told Kornel.
"'H'm!' He stood as though in thought, looking up to me from the water. 'Your father, eh? Would you like him to come and see you?'
"I nodded.
"He laughed and climbed up the bank to me. 'So would I,' he said. 'I have a stiffness in my back that makes me inclined for anything rather than this work. Even your father.'
"We walked up to the house together, and Kornel's brow was creased with thought, while his lips smiled.
"'You see,' he said, 'we want nothing from him—nothing at all, so we can't afford to be humble. Have we any money at all?'
"'We have three shillings,' I answered, 'and I owe one shilling for food.'
"'That's not enough,' he said, shaking his head. 'You say he saw me working? We must have thirty shillings at least; we must treat him well; I can't let him off now that he has seen so much. We'll stuff him till he bulges like a rotten cask, and wishes he could make bricks as I can. I wonder if Pagan would pay me in advance for a thousand dozen. I'll go and ask him.'
"He started for the door at once, but turned and came back to me.
"'He said once he had nothing to give me,' he whispered to me. Do you grudge me this, kleintje.'
"'Not I,' I answered. 'I only wish we could do more.'
"He kissed me and was off in a moment. Pagan made no difficulty about the money. He looked at Kornel shrewdly when my man made the request, and paid at once.
"'It suits me ye should be a wee thing in my debt,' he said. 'But you're so damned proud, there's times I'm scared o' ye. Sign yer name here.'
"'Now,' said Kornel, when he had put the money in my hand, 'get what you need for a dinner that will tickle the ou pa's stomach, and a bottle of whiskey. There never was a deacon that did not suffer from some complaint that whiskey would ease; and I'll get into what clean clothes I have and go to look for him.'
"So I bought the dinner. I was willing enough to suffer the emptiness to come, if only I could wipe from my father's memory his impression of my man's poverty; but all the same, in case he should refuse to visit us, I bought things that would last long enough to serve ourselves until the thirty shillings should have been earned. They made a good show: for I have never been a fool in the matter of food, and I knew my father's tastes. I promised myself that his dinner should be his chief memory of that day, at all events. He was, I fear, the kind of man who remembers his good dinners better than anything else.
"It was a long time before they came, and I had given up all hope of the visit when I heard their voices. Or rather, it was Kornel's voice that I heard, in a tone of careless civility, like one who performs a casual duty of politeness. He was talking nonsense in a slow drawl, and as they picked their way from the road to the house my father looked up to him in a kind of wonder.
"'The evenings are pleasant here,' Kornel was saying. 'We have a little time to ourselves then, for people have learned at last not to trouble us much. One sees the sun go down yonder across the hills, and it is very pretty, Now, on the farm, nobody ever knew how handsome the sunset is. We were like Kafirs on the farm; but life in the town is quite different.'
"He chattered on in the same strain, and my father was plainly dazed by it, so that his judgment was all fogged, and he took the words at their face value. I noticed that my father seemed a little abashed and doubtful; it was easy to see that this was the opposite of what he had expected.
"He greeted me with a touch of hesitation in his manner; but I kissed him on the forehead and tried to appear a fortunate daughter—smiling assuredly, you know, glad to exercise hospitality and to receive my father in my own house. It was not all seeming, either; for I had no shame in my condition and my husband's fortune,—only a resentment for those who affected to expect it.
"'You are looking well,' said my father, staring at me.'How do you like the life you are living?'
"Kornel smiled boldly across to me, and I laughed.
"'I was never so happy in my life,' I answered—and that, at any rate, was true.
"My father grunted, and sat listening to the gentle flow of talk with which Kornel gagged him the while I busied myself with the last turn of the cooking and set the table to rights. But he glanced at me from time to time with something of surprise and disapproval; perhaps a white woman with no Kafir servant had never met his eyes before. Kornel did not miss the expression of his face.
"'We will show you something new in the dinner line,' he remarked knowingly. 'There are things you can't teach to a Kafir, you know.'
"'What things?' demanded my father.
"'Ah, you shall see in a moment,' answered Kornel, nodding mysteriously. 'Christina will show you. Have you ever heard of a ragout?'
"My father shook his head. Neither had I; but I held my tongue.
"'Well,' said Kornel, 'a ragout is a fowl cooked as Christina has cooked it. It is a very favorite dish among the rich men in Johannesburg. If you will draw up your chair to the table you shall see.'
"It is true that I had a good hand with a fowl, stewed in a fashion of my own, which was mainly the outcome of ignorance and emergency; but it was very fortunate that on that day of all days the contrivance should have turned out so well. It was tender, and the flesh was seasoned to just the right flavor by the stuff I stewed with it—certain herbs, Katje, and a hint of a whiff of garlic. Garlic is a thing you must not play with: like sin, you can never undo it, whatever forgiveness you win. But a leaf or two bruised between two clean pebbles, and the pebbles boiled with the stew, spices the whole thing as a touch of devil spices a man.
"You maybe sure I was anxious about it, and watched Kornel and my pa as they started to eat. Kornel swallowed his first mouthful with an appearance of keen judgment; then he winked swiftly to me, and nodded slightly. It was his praise of the dish. Oh, if you had known my man, you would not need telling that that was enough for me. My father commenced to eat as though curious of the food before him. He gave no sign of liking or otherwise; but presently he squared his shoulders, drew his chair closer to the table, and gave his mind to the matter.
"'That's right, walk into it,' said Kornel. "'It is very good indeed,' said my father, eating thoughtfully, and presently I helped him to some more. Kornel gave him soda- water with whiskey in it, and thereafter there were other things to eat—nearly thirty shillings' worth. After that they sat and smoked, and drank the strong coffee I made for them, and passed the whiskey bottle to and fro between them. All the while Kornel babbled amiably of foolish things, sunsets, and Shakespeare and the ways of women, till I caught myself wondering whether indeed he relished the change from the wide clean veld of the farm to this squalid habitation of toil.
"'I suppose,' said my father at last, when Kornel had finished talking about sunsets,—'I suppose a ragoo, as you call it, is very expensive to make?'
"'I really couldn't say,' answered Kornel. 'But I should think not.'
"'H'm; and you think a Kafir could not be taught to make them?'
"Kornel laughed. 'I should be sorry to try,' he said.
"My father pondered on that for a while, smoking strongly and glancing from time to time at me.
"'I'm growing an old man,' he said at last, 'and old men are lonely at the best.'
"'Some seem to wish it,' said Kornel.
"'I say they are lonely,' repeated my father sharply. 'I have no wife, and I cannot be bothered with getting another at my time of life.' He shook his gray head sadly. 'Not that I should have to look far for one,' he added, however.
"Kornel laughed, and my father looked at him angrily.
"'If it had not been for you,' he said, 'I should still have had my daughter Christina to live with me. I am tired of being alone, and I cannot nurse the wrong done me by my own flesh and blood. You and Christina had better come out to the farm and live with me.'
"'And leave my business?' asked Kornel.
"'Oh, there is mud and water on the farm, if your business pleases you,' retorted my father. 'But out there we do not take the bread out of the mouths of Kafirs.'
"'I see,' answered Kornel briefly; and I, who watched him, knew from his voice that there was to be no truce after that, that we should still earn our livelihood by the mud bricks.
"'You will come?' asked my father.
"'Good Lord, no!' replied Kornel. 'You would weary me to death in a week, I don't mind being civil when we meet, but live with you! It would be to make oneself a vegetable.'
"My father heard him out with a grave face, and then rose to his feet. There was a stateliness in his manner that grieved me, for when a man meets a rebuff with silence and dignity he is aging.
"'You are right, perhaps,' he said. 'I don't know, but you may be. Anyhow, I have enjoyed an excellent meal, and I thank you. Good-bye, Christina!'
"When he was gone, Kornel turned to me.
"'It is evident you cannot have both a husband and a father,' he said; 'but I am sorry for the rudeness, kleintje. He is a greater man than I.'
"'I think you might have made it otherwise,' I answered, for my heart ached for my father.
"He shrugged his shoulders. 'You must manage to forgive me,' he said. 'I have a thousand dozen bricks to make, and that will be punishment enough.'
"'But you will not start again tonight!' I cried, for it was already the thin end of evening, and he was taking off his clean clothes.
"'A thousand dozen is a big handful,' he answered, smiling.'There's nothing like getting a grip on the work ahead.'
"So in a few minutes he was down in the water again, and the mud flew as he worked at the heart-breaking task he had taken upon him. After all, the ragout was expensive to make. It came dearer than we expected.
"Late into the night he held on, though thrice I went out to the bank of the stream to beg him to quit it and come to bed. There was a great pale moon that night, which threw up the colors of things strongly, and I have yet in my mind— and my heart—that picture,—the stained water, and the bank of gray mud over it, and between the two my Kornel bent over the endless boxes, vehemently working with no consideration for the limits of his strength. His arms gleamed with the wet, and were ceaseless; he might have been a dumb machine, without capacity for weariness. If he had toiled before, now he toiled doubly; there was a trouble in his mind to be sweated out and a debt of money to be repaid. And also, like a peril always near at hand, there was the thin margin that stood between us and starvation.
"When he came to bed at length, he lay down without the greeting he was wont to give me—lapsed into his place beside me with the limpness of a man spent to the utmost ounce. He slept without turning on his side, his worn hands, half-closed, lying loosely on the quilt. Yet within an hour after daylight he rose with narrow, sleep-burdened eyes, fumbled into his clothes, and staggered out to the spruit again, to resume his merciless work with the very fever of energy. The Kafirs that worked leisurely on the next plot stopped to look at him and to wonder at the speed with which the rows of drying bricks lengthened and multiplied. I saw them pointing as I stood at the door, heavy-hearted and anxious, and envied the ease of their manner of life, and the simplicity that could be content with such work at such a wage. Yes, I have envied Kafirs, Katje; there are times for all women when we envy the dead.
"But it was the day after that that the trouble came upon us, great and violent and unawaited. Kornel had been up at daybreak again, working as strongly as ever, though his mouth was loose with the strain and his face very yellow and white. The drying and the dry bricks were lying on the ground in long rows, and some which were hard were already stacked to make room for others. It was a tremendous output for one man in the time it had taken; and when the Kafirs turned out, gabbling and laughing as usual, they stopped to look in surprise at our plot and the great quantity of bricks. They gathered in a group, and talked among themselves and pointed, and presently I was aware there was something toward. One of them in particular,—a great brown brute, with bulky shoulders and huge arms, seemed to be concerned in the affair; he stared continually towards Kornel, and talked loudly, his voice running up into the squeak of a Kafir when he is excited, or angry, or afraid; and presently he stepped over our border line and walked down to the bricks. He was jabbering to himself all the time as he stooped and picked up bricks and examined them closely, and glanced down to the spruit where Kornel was still working.
"I watched him, but I said nothing, hoping he would go away before Kornel saw him; but he kept on, and presently my man looked up.
"He saw the Kafir at once, and climbed up the bank pretty quickly. There was something like a smile on his face, a look as though he had found the relief he needed. He walked swiftly over to the Kafir.
"'What are you doing here?' he demanded, keeping his eyes unwinkingly on the staring eyes of the Kafir.
"The latter held a dried brick in his great paw, and now he thrust it forward and broke into a torrent of speech. He accused Kornel of having trespassed in the night and stolen the bricks of the Kafirs. No man, he said, could have made so many by himself, and then he began to call names. I shuddered and put my hands before my face, and took them down again in time to see Kornel's fist fly up and out, and the great Kafir reel back from a vicious blow in the face.
"But he gave way for a moment only. Next instant he recovered and his huge arm rose, and I screamed and ran forward as the brick, dry and hard as a stone, struck Kornel on the head and tumbled him, loosely like a dead man, among the rows of bricks about him. I did not see the Kafir run away; I saw only the thin white face of my man turned up to the sun, and the blood that ran from his brown hair. I lifted his head and called to him; but his head lolled on his shoulders, and I let him lie while I ran out crying to find help.
"It was some of the yellow folk who carried him in for me, and brought the German doctor.
"Kornel was on the bed when he came, and he caused the cut to be bandaged, and then spoke abstrusely of the effect of the blow, so that I understood nothing at all. I learned, however, how I was to tend him, how feed him, and how he would lie unconscious for long intervals when there would be nothing at all to do for him. But he told me I had nothing to fear in the end. Indeed, he had a kind of cheeriness which seems to belong to doctors, which did much to comfort me and steady me for what was to come. Kornel would not die, he said; and it was that assurance I chiefly needed.
"The day went slowly for me, I can tell you. There was yet food enough in the house to last us a little while, and I made a mess for Kornel, and ate what I wanted myself. He recovered his sense of things once or twice, but when night came he dropped off again into a stupor from which he was not to be roused, and it was then I left him. I felt as though I were a traitor to him in his weakness; but my mind had buzzed hopelessly all day about the problem of our mere living, and I saw nothing else for it, so down I went to the spruit to earn what I might for my sick husband.
"The moon gave me light, and I had watched Kornel often enough to know how to go about the work. But the water, as it flowed about my legs, bit me with a chill that made me gasp, and the effort of the work, the constant bending and lifting, tried every muscle in my body. I had seen the cruelty of the work in its traces on Kornel, and knew how little it gave and how much it took; but with this first trial of it came the realization, never lost since, of how gallant a man I had chosen to stand between me and the world, and how much I owed him. I had not time to think a great deal, for the torture of brick-making is partly in the tact that while it wrenches the body, it joins the mind to its infinite triviality. If you think, you do not pack the mud as it must be packed, and the sun crumbles your bricks to dust. It is no task for a real man at all; even for a woman, it debases, it unmakes, it breaks.
"I worked hard at it, husbanding my strength, and within an hour I was weak and foolish with the effort. Twice I had left it to go in and see if all was well with Kornel, and this rested me; but I was now resolved that I must rest no more, if ever our debt was to be paid and bread earned for the grim days to come. So I stayed in the bitter water and worked on, till even the sense of pain was dulled and it seemed that I was past the capacity of feeling.
"I was toiling thus (never mind my old troubles, Katje, dear; this is years ago) when a sound came to my ears that caused me to look up. It had been going on for some time, persisting till it gained my notice, and suddenly I became aware that there were men on our ground among the bricks. I climbed half-way up the bank to look at them, where they could not see me; and I saw several dark figures bent to some business or moving here and there. I caught the sound of hushed voices, too, though no words; and then the hot wrath set my blood racing as I realized what was going on. The Kafirs, who knew my man was wounded and helpless—the very beast who had felled him—were stealing the bricks he had labored so stoutly to make. My head swam with a delirium of vivid anger at the meanness of the crime, and without calculation, with no thought of fear, I scrambled up and ran at them, shouting.
"I suppose they were surprised at my coming out of the spruit, and some of them ran as soon as they heard me. Others stood and waited ominously—you know what a Kafir is with a woman,—and doubtless I should have met my last earthly troubles then and there, but that from the road beyond us there were other shouts, and men came running.
"I saw the forms of the rescuers as they raced up, and marked one tall young man who ran past me with his arm lifted before him. There was a flash and a bang, and I sat down heavily as the white men shot at the Kafirs who were now all running to cover. It took but an instant, and I remember it as one remembers a thing seen at night by a lightning flash, sharp and feverish.
"'Ye've no need to be feared,' someone said to me. 'They're only my clerks, but they're a handy lot.'
"A short stout man was standing over me, and as I looked up I saw it was old Pagan. Away in the darkness there were yet cries and the sound of blows, where the white men pursued the Kafirs.
"'Ye see,' continued the old man, 'I heard o' what had happened, an' I counted on this. I'm a man o' experience, Mrs. du Plessis, an' the very same thing happened to me once. So I got a few o' my lads along, and we've been waitin' for what ye might call the eventuality. I'm no' exactly a negrophilist, ye ken. An' after seem' you squatterin' about in the mud yonder, while yer husband was sick a-bed, there was no holdin' the lads. No' that I endeavored to restrain them, in any precise sense.'
"Away in the darkness a Kafir shrieked agonizedly.
"'There ye are,' said the old man. 'Yon's chivalry. If ye had been a man, they'd never ha' put their hearts into it like that.'
"He helped me to my feet and gave me an arm towards the house.
"'There's just one thing,' he said, 'and it's this. I'm no' quite the slave-driver ye might take me for—workin' in the night to drag a pittance out o' me! For instance, I've a job in the store that yer man can have, if it'll suit him, and if you're willing yerself. It's no' a big thing, but it's white. And for the present while, I dare say I can advance ye enough to be going on with. And me and the lads 'll say no word about seein' you at yer work.'
"What is the use of carrying this tale on? It was there we ceased to have the troubles that go to making tales, and entered upon the ordered life of good industry and clean living. But, Katje, of all that came afterwards, money and success, and even children, there was nothing to knit us as did the sorry months by the spruit, when my Kornel proved himself the man I knew him to be. Be happy, Katje; be happy at any rate."
I think she has been happy.